Currently the rising tide of IPTV has caught the imagination of most internet commentators. Indeed some misguided fools are labelling the concept ‘Web 3.0‘ in the same way as I describe going outside for a cigarette as having an ‘external conference’, or business analysts refer to sackings as ‘headcount reductions’. Aside from the flawed concept of Web 2.0, and the even more flawed concept of ‘Web 3.0‘, there are interesting developments. The main hope appears to be Joost, with Bittorrent also in the running, and the likes of BT Vision etc.

Well, call me Marty McFly if you like, but I’ve been watching IPTV for over two years now, along with some of my colleagues, friends, and countless sports fans. In fact, I once manned a desk at a large public trade show, and watched an entire Premiership football match at the same time, thanks to the fast broadband connection. Want to join in? Go to almost any reasonably popular forum, and post a topic about wanting to watch any sports without having to subscribe to Pay-Per-View television.

Without fail, someone will mention PPLive. Although the menus are in Chinese, there are plenty of English language sites to explain how to select the channel you wish to view. And then you get streaming football, for example, sometimes with English commentaries. And at a reasonable qaulity, depending on your connection etc…

If you do want to keep up with the ‘Johnny-come-latelies’ of the internet television world, I’d recommend NewTeeVee from the GigaOm network. Part of the NewTeeVee round-up this week links to four potential P2P IPTV problems from Mark Cuban.